BMX XXX

Controversial extreme sports title comes under Mr Monk's highly-critical gaze.

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BMX XXX is the latest BMX game to emerge from the continuing success of aggressive street sports games. The interesting twist is that it revolves around the sex industry. That basically means there’s porn involved. An interesting combination you may think, although you’re probably thinking its just some kind of cheap marketing ploy, and judging by the way it’s been plastered all over urinals and pubs I’d tend to agree with you. It seems that the publishers think that the public will buy this game just because it contains female nudity. The sad thing is they’re probably right (and what’s even more annoying is you only get to see the top half!). I’ve tried to look beyond the naked women for a few moments to see if the game actually offers anything new and exciting, hoping that its assets aren’t its best assets, if you catch my drift.

BMX XXX is based around 9 fair-sized levels from the Bronx to a space shuttle launch pad. They are well designed levels each giving you the opportunity to make good use of the range of tricks on offer, which is decent enough, but the game is to be let down shortly.

Hardcore Tour is the single player game and in this you ride around each level with your selected character. All in-game characters are fictional after all links with Dave Mirra were removed, but this doesn’t really matter as the game would not greatly improve with his name adorning the box. Anyway, each level consists of 20 challenges such as escorting prostitutes to getting rid of dog poo for a caretaker with a mouth like a toilet. That’s just the first level! They’re certainly imaginative in some cases but often pretty boring and samey.

Unlike Aggressive Inline, there’s no camera option to give you hints as to where challenges are so occasionally you can be milling about scratching your head. Challenges can be found by going up to people on the street such as pimps and asking them questions. Also scattered among the level are bike upgrades, so to complete a level you must find all the gaps, get all the pick-ups and do all the challenges.

Across the 9 levels there’s certainly enough to do but the controls let the game down terribly. Manoeuvring your bike around the streets can be frustrating and time consuming. Bikes are hard to control and really unresponsive and when it comes to linking combos it becomes very tough. Seeing your rider falling to the ground and sliding along in an unrealistic wooden fashion soon becomes a trend, and a tiresome one at that.